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Rh of the time when he was young. He felt like an old man coming home again: he, scarcely eight-and-thirty! It was as though he were ashamed in the presence of the familiar! And, very secretly, too weak to accuse himself, he accused her, the woman sitting beside him, the woman four years older than himself. He too was thinking of Rome now, of the rooms of the Netherlands Legation, of her, then Mrs. de Staffelaer, the wife of his chief, of their love-affair, first in jest, then in earnest, until that terrible moment in the room where they used to meet; De Staffelaer in the doorway; Constance fleeing through another door; and his interview with the injured old man, who had been good to him, in a fatherly fashion! And he blamed her for it: it was her fault! He was a young man then, with hardly any knowledge of the world; she, a woman of twenty-eight, married for over five years, had enticed him, had been the temptress! It was she, it was she: he blamed her for it! He had not loved her at first, during the first stages of the flirtation. There had been a chat, a waltz, a jest. Yes, then it had turned to passion; but what was passion? The flame of a moment, flaring up and then extinguished. And he knew it: from that day, when he stood as a culprit in the presence of that dignified old man, from that day the flame was extinguished. And from that day he began to see the life that lay before him: the scandal, which filled all Rome; the despair of his pious parents, far away at home, in Holland; Constance in Florence: their first interview there,